Someone I dearly love suggested to me that perhaps I should take a
moment and write about my feelings for my children, versus my feelings about
the babies I carry for other people.
I guess it makes the most sense to start with the way I feel about my
kids. I could be cliché and say that I’ve loved them since the moment I
realized I was going to have a baby. If I’m honest though, I can’t say it. I
was excited at the prospect of having a baby, and I (obviously) thoroughly
enjoyed the experience of being pregnant. It was fun to play with them all as
they grew and began to respond to my pokes and prods and movements. It was also
frightening, in the case of my two boys. Would I be ready? What kind of mother
would I be? Especially with Alex; I was very afraid that I wouldn’t become
attached to him, because I HADN’T become attached to the three babies I’d given
birth to between him and Lil Man.
It was the moment I met my sons that won me over completely. They were MINE
and I knew it, and that knowledge spilled into my heart, overflowing it in ways
that Niagara Falls could only dream. I love them tenderly. I love them fiercely.
I can never convey in words, hugs, kisses, or really any action – the depth of
my affection for the two children I’ve brought into the world, and into my
home.
I think it’s that ferocity; that tenderness of emotion that allows me
to carry other people’s children for them. I know what it is to hold my baby in
my arms and feel the wellspring of adoration come alive inside me; and I want
to help others feel that, too. I think that’s also why nearly every surrogacy
agency in the country requires that their surrogates have given birth to a
child that they are currently raising. It ensures that the women they contract
to perform this service, TRULY understand what it is they’re giving these
couples – and decreases the liability of the surrogate attempting to “keep” the
baby.
It also makes a huge difference – to me at least – that while Husbeast
is there and supportive, he’s not a contributor to the process in any
physiological way. There’s no emotional connection to us in the creation of
these little people. It’s a very sterile, prescriptive process. Not to say that
it’s unnatural or wrong in any way – but it helps me to detach, and reminds me
as I begin each cycle, “This baby is not yours. This isn’t an adoption; you’re
carrying someone else’s biological offspring.”
Beyond that, I’ve been blessed each pregnancy with Intended Parents who
wanted to be involved. Seeing their faces light up at ultrasounds, and when the
OB’s put the Doppler to my belly to broadcast the babies’ heartbeats is just
amazing. And their expressions when they finally meet their children are
absolutely priceless. Nothing in the world shows me that I’ve done something
right better than those faces.
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